Image of dog urinating against campaign vehicle of Kenya’s opposition leader is manipulated

This article is more than one year old.
Published on November 4, 2021 at 15:30
2 min read
By Mary KULUNDU, AFP Kenya

Facebook posts claiming to show a dog urinating against a vehicle bearing the face of Kenya’s opposition leader Raila Odinga have been shared more than a hundred times. The claim is false; the image is a composite of two separate and unrelated pictures.

The Facebook post was published on October 1, 2021, with a caption that reads: "Immediately after receiving these vehicles as donation for campaign, a dog from nowhere did this♀️☠ (sic)".

An image in the post appears to show a dog with a blue-collar lifting a hind leg to a vehicle with Odinga’s face on it.

A screenshot of the false post, taken on November 4, 2021

A similar post was shared on Facebook here.

Odinga, who is eyeing the presidential seat in elections scheduled for August 2022, received a fleet of vehicles on October 1, 2021, as a campaign donation from a local entertainment company. This was reported in local media here, here, and here.

Manipulated image

However, a reverse image search revealed the same picture of the vehicle published on news blogs here and here but without the dog.

A screenshot of a news blog showing Odinga's campaign vehicle without the dog, taken on November 4, 2021

After using a cropping tool to isolate the dog, AFP Fact Check performed a second reverse image search and found the original picture of the animal on iStock by Getty Images here. In this image the dog is lifting its leg against a wooden fence.

A screenshot of the original image of the dog on the iStock website, taken on November 4, 2021

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